Of Lizards, Kings And Broken Things
by jan.lakomiec
Summary: Zilla wakes up in a strange, unfamiliar place and quickly becomes aware of some odd changes that have taken place while he was unconscious. Will he and his new "allies" find a way to adapt to this new world? (Bad summary for a bad story by a bad writer)
1. Zilla's Very Bad Day

He awakened to a world of pain, the type that took your breath away and left you gasping and heaving in panic. If iguanas could sweat, he would have been drenched. His entire left side, much of his flank and his entire thigh felt like each individual nerve in them had been set on fire and, despite having no actual idea what it was, he was pretty sure he was running a bitch of a fever. Everything felt too cool against his skin: the soft breeze, the surface of whatever he was lying on, his own breath against the scaly skin of his nostrils, and he was unable to suppress the shivers that rocked his body.

Zilla was no stranger to pain, having lived through his fair share of it but this was different. This was worse. He felt his body begin to shake and convulse, entirely out of his control, as foam oozed out of the corner of his maw, some of it dripping back down his throat and causing him to gag and hack painfully. Even his lungs hurt, every breath feeling like a billion miniature spikes stabbing into his ribcage.

"He's going into shock," he heard someone say, somewhere above him. Or maybe around him.

His head was spinning, the contents of his stomach, however negligible, threatening to come spilling out any second. He had no idea where he was, and even though the solid surface pressing against his back seemed to indicate he was lying down, he felt like he was floating.

Another series of impulses came running up from the undoubtedly fried nerve endings in his leg and side, and he cried out in pain, unable to keep it muffled this time. This was agony. Surely this is what dying must feel like, he managed to think to himself, dimly aware of multiple sets of footsteps circling him.

"Hold him down, he's going to hurt himself," someone called out and Zilla mentally scoffed. There was no way for him to hurt himself even worse.

He felt hands grabbing him, holding him down, and hissed. They were warm, too warm, and they burned against his already scalding hot scales, like someone had placed white hot coals all over his body. One pair of hands clumsily grabbed his hurt leg and he nearly dislocated it with how hard he kicked the offending appendages away, another agonized scream tearing its way from beyond his tightly gritted teeth. He felt something sticky and warm flowing down his shin and thigh and pooling under the back of his knee; blood, definitely blood. And lots of it.

"Careful! Can't you see he's hurt," someone scolded from right above Zilla's head, a male, words punctuated with a low growl. The voice sounded familiar, like he had heard it before, though he couldn't really think on who it might be in his current state.

"Sorry, sorry," the offender muttered and the same hands returned, this time gripping Zilla's flailing tail and forcing it down against the cool surface.

"He needs to calm down," another voice spoke, to his left; it also sounded male and angry. "He's thrashing too much. Talk to him."

Another growl came from above him, and then the voice spoke again, this time addressing him directly.

"Zilla."

The sound of his own name made him jerk and twitch violently. No one had ever used his name before, how did they even know it?

"Zilla, open your eyes," the voice demanded with another deep, rumbling growl that vibrated through Zilla's body.

Despite not at all wanting to, the iguana felt compelled to comply. For a moment he struggled, as if he had forgotten how opening eyes worked, and then slowly pried his eyelids apart. Blinding light assaulted his eyes with all the ferocity of a supernova and he quickly shut them again, hissing unhappily. He was beginning to feel light headed, undoubtedly the effect of losing too much blood, as its flow hadn't stopped or slowed down in the time he had been coherent enough to notice, and instead only seemed to quicken.

"Open your eyes," the growling voice ordered and Zilla felt a pang of fear run through his tortured and barely conscious mind. He didn't want to get hurt any more than he already was, and the voice very clearly held an unspoken threat of just that.

Obeying, he opened his eyes again.

The light was less intrusive this time and he could actually see his surroundings: a grey surface suspended above him that didn't at all look like sky, and splotches of colors of various shapes and sizes surrounding him; all of it felt unfamiliar, and unfamiliar meant dangerous. His heart beat harder and blood gushed from his wounds faster. And then his bleary eyes focused on the silhouette directly above him with its hands on his shoulders, leaned forward enough to fit its entire face in his field of vision. His racing heart stopped and his eyes widened as soon as the face, or snout rather, came into focus.

Godzilla.

His fight or flight instinct kicked in instantly and he would've bolted had it not been for the strong hands holding him down.

Godzilla, the King of Monsters. The most powerful and terrifying kaiju in existence. The very same one who, as Zilla had always believed, hated him with an undying and unending passion. And, coincidentally, the very same one Zilla had saved earlier.

Wait... saved?

The events that had led up to this moment began to slowly play back in his mind, originally forced back into its darkest and deepest corners by the ever present and overpowering pain and now freed by the shock of seeing Godzilla's muzzle up close and personal.

The battle, the rain, the golden dragon Ghidorah and its triumphant trills as it stood over Godzilla, his own panic, the rush and whiz of air around him as he ran, the flash of yellow light, the searing pain and then... nothing.

Zilla had jumped in front of Ghidorah's beam to save Godzilla from the blast.

He blinked his amber eyes slowly, staring into Godzilla's own orange-yellow ones. The expression on the King's muzzle could only be described as indecipherable, as neither anger nor worry tinged his stoic features. Slowly Zilla's gasping, uneven breath returned to him and his heart resumed its quickened pace. He began hyperventilating. Why, he was not entirely sure, maybe because he had never once imagined that he'd get to see Godzilla up close like this, or maybe because he was convinced the towering kaiju would blow his head away with his famed atomic breath.

And then something pricked the scales of his unburned thigh, piercing them with ease and injecting something cool into his bloodstream, completely derailing that entire train of thought. He jerked his leg, though the reflex was delayed by his sluggish brain, and blinked again, this time much slower.

Whatever the substance was, it was working fast. His heart calmed down of its own accord, his limbs grew heavy as if made of lead and his eyelids dropped, his body going slack and still. The last thing he saw before he fell into a deep slumber was Godzilla's face, still sporting that unreadable expression, staring at him intently.


	2. Phantom Pain

Raindrops beat out an unsteady rhythm on his scaly hide as he ran, feeling ground and pavement crack and groan beneath his massive feet. Huge chunks of asphalt were being ripped out as his obsidian claws tore into the street with every mighty leap, leaving behind a trail of destruction and smashed cars. The muscles of his legs quivered and burned from the strain of this mad dash, but he pushed on, driven by a deep burning hatred and all-encompassing rage. At what, he could not tell, his thoughts too clouded with the red haze of fury to truly worry about such unimportant details.

His eyes, narrowed angrily, were staring straight ahead and down at a small moving box speeding through the night, shining bright yellow as it occasionally passed under a circle of light cast by a stray streetlamp; the source of all his anger and grief. Everything else around him blended together into a shapeless, dark mass that sped by at a staggering speed, insignificant and unnoticed. He was dimly aware of his tail swinging behind him and felt it smash into things, but ignored it too. The box was so close now, practically in his reach. He stretched out his sinewy body as far as he could and brought his head down, looking to clamp his jaws around it.

He missed by inches. And then the yellow insect took a sharp right turn and he swung his head to follow it, throwing himself off balance with the sudden movement in the process. He lost his footing, slipped and fell to his knees, sending debris flying and kicking up a massive cloud of dust, letting out an enraged roar at his own folly and scrambled to get up and continue the chase.

Though his mistake had given his prey the opening it needed to create some distance between itself and its pursuer, it didn't take him long to catch up. The storm had been gradually growing in force all throughout their little game of cat and mouse, making his wet scales shimmer in the light of an occasional lightning bolt that zigzagged across the sky.

He breathed heavily, each wheezing exhale creating a fountain of water exploding out of his nostrils. Each heavy footfall against the solid ground jarred the muscles and bones of his powerful legs, causing them to burn and ache and throb in protest, and exhaustion battled the adrenaline-fueled determination at each step. Undeterred, he pressed on, trying not to think of how much longer he could keep going like this.

Another lunge, another miss as the box veered out of the way of his snapping maw, another furious roar. While his prey might not have been faster than him, its smaller size allowed it to dodge each of his attacks with insulting ease; a fact that angered him even further.

In his rage at the insect, he failed to see when ground had given way to something more rickety, swinging back and forth unsteadily underneath his feet, clearly not made to support someone of his size and bulk. He only realized something wasn't right when he rammed shoulders first into something solid and rough that stopped him dead in his tracks. The impact had knocked the air straight out of him in a high-pitched almost-bark and dazed him momentarily. His eyes refocused on his prey, speeding away from him; it must have dodged the obstruction that he, in his blind fury, had ran into.

He roared loudly and pushed forward, trying to shove himself through the tight space. He would not let the cursed yellow box, he would not. The ground he stood on groaned in protest at his struggles, cracking beneath his clawing feet as he struggled against his inanimate opponent for freedom.

Something fell on top of him, crashing against the razor sharp spikes on his back and further pinning him in place. He tried to take a step forward, but something caught onto his foot before he could lift and immobilized it. He swung his forearms, trying to claw his way through instead, but all he succeeded in doing was leaving a few deep gashes in the brick. His tail thrashed behind him, swaying from side to side and slamming into his assailants in an effort to drive them off, to no avail, he was stuck and his prey had escaped. Trapped and helpless, he roared again, all of his anguish and anger and grief rolled into one ear-splitting scream.

Something whizzed past his head. He recoiled slightly in surprise, trying to swing his head in the direction it went to spot what had made that sound. And then three other objects slammed into his side and exploded, tearing out chunks of flesh, muscle and tissue. Roars of anger turned to screeches of pain in an instant.

His whole body shuddered, the pain nearly enough to make his knees buckle. Waterfalls of blood cascaded down his side and leg to crash onto the ground below. He could feel the rain and wind whip against exposed bone and flesh. He panted heavily, screeching and crying out in pain as another round of explosions tore his head apart, this time on his other side.

He felt his knees grow weak as his own blood stained his grey scales and spilled down his legs and sides. Fragments of ribs, broken apart by the force of the blasts, stuck out from his sides, some stabbing further into his body and piercing his lungs, which filled up with warm blood in an instant, making breathing impossible. He coughed and gargled, tasting copper and warmth in the back of his mouth; one of the explosions had caught him on the throat and blasted it wide open.

He swayed, unsteady, growing dizzy from the blood loss and pain. He opened his mouth once again to release one final agonized cry, but all that came out of his slack jaw was more blood as another series of explosions dug into the exposed meat of his ribcage and blew apart his insides. Darkness consumed his vision, each nerve in his body seeming to scream out in pain all at once, and he tipped over and fell to the ground with a meaty thud, splashing blood everywhere and sending chunks of meat flying.

For a moment his sides still rose and fell, more out of habit than actual necessity for oxygen. He could feel his intestines come spilling out in a mess from the holes created by the blasts, his legs giving their final twitches. And with a final shuddering exhale, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and his heart stilled.

Zilla shot up with a strangled gasp, clutching his chest and feeling it heave under his palm. He could still feel the heat of the explosions tearing his body apart, though as he reached to check his side his hand came away without any blood on it. He shut his eyes tightly and slowly rubbed his chest in small circles, trying to calm his racing heart.

Just a nightmare, he reasoned to himself, slowly lying back down and taking in deep, steady breaths. Gradually, the panic attack passed and he could breathe normally again.

This wasn't the first time he'd had this dream, as it seemed to plague him every time he closed his eyes to rest. But no matter how many times he had gone through his own death, he never got used to experiencing it. Nor the pain of wounds that weren't really there.

Pain...

He reached down his left side and carefully traced his fingers down its length. His usually smooth scales were swollen in a jagged line that led all the way down from just under his ribcage to his left knee. So he hadn't dreamt that part up. He had really jumped in front of Godzilla to get zapped by a string of gravity beams. What a fitting end to a lowly creature like him. Except he'd survived. It seemed not even nature itself wanted Zilla to go down in a blaze of glory.

With a small chuffing exhale he reached up to gently rub at his temples, feeling a migraine slowly developing behind his eyes. He paused when his fingers brushed against the rough skin of his skull and his eyes snapped open.

He had never been able to touch his head like this before. And come to think of it, why was he lying on his back?

Wait...

Zilla brought his hands in front of his face, and his eyes widened in shock. His arms were longer. He sat up again, just as abruptly as he had before, staring at his limbs as if they weren't his own.

When the hell did that happen, he questioned, slowly turning his hands this way and that, and wiggling his fingers; they looked suspiciously similar to... human hands, with four fingers and a thumb, albeit the claws and scales they were sporting were noticeably inhuman. He gulped quietly, his amber eyes bulging out even more at that realization; something was definitely off. His eyes travelled from the tips of his fingers to his legs, which appeared to be generally fine without any apparent differences to them, save for the massive scar he had noticed already. He wiggled his toes just to make sure they were still working, though.

Between his legs rested his tail. At first glance, there was nothing alarming about it, though upon closer inspection Zilla realized that his tail didn't normally bend like this. And why was he sitting, he'd never sat like this before, only ever crouched on his haunches to get a closer look at something on the ground.

Panic began to claw at the edges of his mind once again and his breath quickened dangerously. He jerked his head around, suddenly distrustful of his surroundings. No light had blinded him when he had first opened his eyes, the entire area was dark though he could see in it just fine thanks to his heightened eyesight.

There was a window to his right, through it he could see a gray, cloudy sky and mountain peaks in the distance. A window? He looked to his left, nearly snapping his own neck with how fast he turned: rows of boxes with gleaming handles adorned the neutrally colored wall, and beneath them stood even more boxes.

He slowly reached for his chest again, feeling another case of hyperventilation coming. None of this was natural, none of this looked like the cave he had called his home, or a decimated city he had fought in, or even the many forests he had wondered through. By all accounts, this looked like... like a place a... a human would live in.

And then the door he hadn't noticed before opened, and he leapt right off the flat surface he'd been lying on and tumbled to the floor with a subdued shriek of surprise. Thankfully he landed on his uninjured leg. He grabbed the edge of the nearest box and dragged himself to his feet, hissing a little at being forced to put some of his weight on his bad leg; it still hurt, though not quite as badly as it had before.

"...You okay there?"

The iguana turned around at the sound of someone's voice, his tail whipping behind him and slamming into something with a loud bang that made him jump a little. In the doorway stood a familiar figure, illuminated by the slope of artificial light from behind, though at the same time it wasn't familiar at all.

Rodan, Zilla's mind supplied helpfully, the pteranodon kaiju. They had met before on several occasions, the last battle being the most recent one. Well, "met" might have been too strong of a word; but Zilla had seen him flying about, that surely counted for something. Though he didn't look like the Rodan Zilla remembered. His arms were longer and more... arm-like with similarly structured hands to his own, his wings hung off them awkwardly like a sheet of taut skin, stretching from his wrists to his hips on either side of his body. Though now they were folded strangely as their owner had his arms crossed over his chest.

"Done gawking yet?" Rodan asked, bemused and Zilla flushed a little under his scales.

He gave a small nod in response. At least Rodan's beak remained the same. Absentmindedly Zilla reached up for his own snout, feeling it out gingerly and finding, with much relief, that it had remained as it had been before.

"About time you woke up, you've been out for, like, a week," the flying kaiju spoke up again, looking Zilla over thoroughly, his eyes lingering on the scar; though with how big it was, it would be odd for someone not to notice it right away.

"Week?" Zilla blurted out, shocked, in a meek voice, before he could stop himself.

He cursed internally, seeing Rodan's eyes widen a fraction. He was expecting the other kaiju to make some sort of comment about his voice, but no such thing happened.

"Yeah, you got hit pretty bad," Rodan awkwardly cleared his throat and the two fell into an uncomfortable silence, with the pteranodon suddenly finding great interest in the texture of his arm and Zilla glancing around uncertainly all the while wrenching his hands nervously.

He still had no real clue as to what was going on and it seemed Rodan wasn't exactly keen on helping to unravel any of these mysteries. Though in order for him to do so, Zilla would first need to ask, and he wasn't very good at asking. Or talking.

"Oh for... Just bring him out here, Radon," someone barked from behind Rodan's back, who squawked in indignation just as Zilla backed away hastily and bumped his hips against one of the boxes behind him, its sharp edge jamming unpleasantly into his backside.

"It's RODAN, not RADON," he hissed over his shoulder, motioning for Zilla to follow him.

The iguana hesitated at first, his tail beating behind him nervously. The voice that had called to Rodan was so similar to that of Godzilla's that it made his skin crawl in anxiety. Another meeting with the Kaiju King was very low on the list of things he'd like to do today, but he supposed there was no way to avoid it. Risking the wrath of Godzilla was a spectacularly stupid idea.

Seeing the iguana frozen in place, Rodan heaved a heavy sigh, rolled his eyes and crossed the room to grab Zilla firmly by the wrist. It earned him a gasp of surprise from the iguana, who had been so lost in thought he had failed to see the pteranodon approach him, and a pair of large, wide amber eyes staring into his own. Rodan noted to himself how Zilla seemed to shrink a little from physical contact.

They looked at each other for a good few seconds, Zilla's frozen surprise and Rodan's silent bewilderment. Finally, the flying kaiju tugged on the iguana's wrist.

"Come on, they'll explain," he said, and Zilla could've almost sworn that Rodan's voice was softer. He immediately pushed that thought away, and followed, this time without any hesitance.

Each step he took was measured and careful. His center of gravity had been altered completely, as he was forced to walk fully upright and not leaned over like he had before all of this. Despite that, he didn't want to lean on Rodan; he was sure the other kaiju would not appreciate that.

They made it to the door without any incidents, which was a small success in and of itself. Rodan shot him a quick glance and, apparently deciding he'd be fine the rest of the way alone, stepped through the entrance and disappeared from the iguana's view.

Taking a small breath to prepare himself, Zilla took a shaky step and passed through the door himself. He was forced to narrow his eyes as the light shone into them oppressively and needed a moment to get used to it after the darkness of the area he'd woken up in, blinking owlishly. As soon as his vision adjusted and he could see where he was again, he froze.

Zilla felt his heart begin to pound and his breath took on a wheezing quality.

Before him, around what human referred to as a table, sat nine Godzillas. Nine. That was eight too many. At best. And each of them was staring right at him with various levels of snarl visible on their faces. It didn't help that he had never seen seven of them before. In his defense, beings stronger than him would likely quake at the sight of eight Godzillas, not that he was looking for any excuses.

A part of him, a very major one, wanted nothing more but to bolt right back to the relative safety of the previous room, but he kept his ground, and returned their stern looks with one of his own, albeit his was a lot more wary and frightened instead of intimidating.

"So, little one," one of them rumbled, this one tall, taller than even his brethren, covered in thick armor plating so unlike the Godzilla Zilla had seen before with a thick neck and a plethora of scars covering his scaly body. His voice was deep and rumbling, like an earthquake. "You must have questions."


End file.
